The High Court on Monday further adjourned the hearing till April 8 on its rule asking the government to explain why directions should not be given to find out BNP joint secretary general Salahuddin Ahmed and bring him before it.
At the fag end of the court hour, an HC division bench, comprising Justice Quamrul Islam Siddiqui and Justice Gobinda Chandra Tagore passed the order closing the submission by Attorney General Mahbubey Alam on the rule, keeping pending the arguments of the counsel for the petitioner.Before making his arguments, the chief government law officer submitted the five reports prepared by Police Headquarters, Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP), Rapid Action Battalion (Rab), Special Branch of Police and Criminal Investigation Department (CID) through affidavits as asked by the court.
According to the law-enforcement agencies’ reports, none of them arrested BNP joint secretary general Salahuddin Ahmed and they do not know his whereabouts. They have been trying to find him out and the search drive is still on, the reports added.
Hasina Ahmed, wife of Salahuddin, on March 12 moved the High Court to seek remedy claiming that the law enforcers in plainclothes picked her husband up from an Uttara house in the capital on March 10 night and yet to hand him over to any police station.
Responding to the petition under section 491 of the CrPC filed by Salahuddin’s wife, the HC issued a rule upon the government.
BNP leader Salahuddin had been issuing statements from a hideout, including those with hartal announcements, on behalf of the BNP-led 20-party alliance, since the arrest by Rab of another BNP joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi in early February from his hideout in a Baridhara house. Salahuddin has been in hideout at an Uttara house his wife said complaining that some people identifying themselves as menbers of law enforcing agencies broke into the house blindfolded and handcuffed Salahuddin before taking him away. – UNB
